1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a computer system and a booting method thereof, and more particularly, to a computer system which performs a power-on self test (POST) and loads an operating system, and a booting method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A computer system, such as a desktop computer or a laptop computer, is turned on and then booted. During the booting process, the computer system loads an operating system to perform a normal operation. The operating system is loaded by copying data of the operating system (hereinafter referred to as operating system data) stored in a hard disc drive or a flash memory as a secondary memory unit to a main memory, such as a RAM (random access memory), accessed by a CPU (central processing unit).
In the conventional computer system, however, the operating system data is copied to the main memory only after an initialization sequence called a power-on self test (POST) is finished. The POST includes checking whether peripheral devices of the system operate normally, which takes quite some time. Thus, the operating system starts to be loaded only after the time required to perform the POST (hereinafter referred to as booting time) has elapsed. As a result, the booting process takes a long time to complete. Such delay of the start of the computer system due to the booting should be addressed in order to reduce the booting time.